


Earth Flowers

by theLilyBird



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLilyBird/pseuds/theLilyBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrus and Rylee Shepard discuss how he survived the two years Shepard was dead.<br/>~Not Connected to Songs About Temptation~<br/>~Originally Posted on DA~</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth Flowers

Garrus stroked Rylee's hair. He didn't quite remember why he was sitting on her couch with her head in his lap, reading--what was he reading? He squinted at the screen, realizing they were details for system upgrades EDI forwarded to him, insisting his software needed updating.

He looked down at Rylee. He'd been daydreaming again. He really needed to stop that. Especially when she was was around.

Scratch that.

 _When she decided to rest her head in his lap_ , he corrected. Because she was always around.

He noticed her stir, groaning quietly before she stretched.

"How long have I been sleeping?" she said groggily.

He tossed the datapad softly and it landed on the table with little noise. "Not long. Besides, you deserve your naps, so it doesn't even matter."

"I suppose you're right," she said softly, adjusting her head slightly, getting more comfortable.

He went back to stroking her hair. He'd begun to fall maddeningly in love with the human version of fringe. It was soft and smelled so strongly. It came in thousands of colors and millions of lengths and styles, but Rylee's was different. It smelled like Earth flowers and strawberries and was uniquely red. Violently so, and sometimes, he could've sworn, it got brighter, more vibrant. But he never bothered to ask.

He sat there for a while, stroking her hair, thinking about the millions of ways she could've styled it, and the dozens she did. His favorite was definitely down, cascading over her shoulders the way it did. With her sort-of-bangs falling just past her left eyebrow and covering her eye halfway.

"Garrus, how'd you survive?" came the soft, sweet, and obviously awake voice of Shepard.

His mind fluttered, he'd been so enveloped in her hair that he hadn't noticed she was wide awake. At least it'd kept his mind in PG-13 places for the last twenty minutes.

Turning his attention to her words, he processed them. His name. And how he survived. But how he survived what? He thought a minute, sort of expecting her to give a little more information. But to no avail, the flame haired human resting her beautiful head in his lap stayed silent.

"Cybernetic implants. We've been over this, Ry. I'd be dead if it wasn't for the cybernetics. Or simply if this wasn't Cerberus and I wasn't so important." It was true. If Rylee was with the Alliance...he'd be dead.

But he wasn't going to write the Illusive Man a thank you letter.

Rylee softly shook her head, causing Garrus to move his hand to her shoulder and away from her hair. "No, Garrus. I know that. I meant in the two years I was...dead. How'd you survive?"

She'd wanted to say gone. Like she just up and left for two years, and suddenly reappeared before him with a whining merc and a scantily clad biotic. He knew that's what she wanted to say. _Gone_.

He sighed and began to trace patterns on her shoulder, trying to find the words. "The same way Tali deals with being exiled, or Thane deals with his illness, or even how Samara deals with all her children being Ardat-Yakshi. You grit your teeth and bear it, because you know damn well there's not a thing you can do about it."

She rolled over so she looked up at him. "That's no answer, Garrus."

He looked down into those emerald eyes. "You know what's going to happen if I tell you the truth, right?"

She reached up and touched his scar, making him inhale sharply. "Yes."

"You don't survive, Ry. You just exist. You try and try and try, failing more and more each day, to be normal. To be the person you were before. Drinking yourself under the table some nights. Taking some strange woman home on others. Getting into fights and waking up in a cell in the morning. Then, somewhere in the middle of the whole mess, you straighten up, you gather your shit and you attend the funeral."

"And then?" she asked, her voice dropping to that place just before tears, stroking his mandible and staring at him.

He put his hand on hers and leaned into her touch.

"You see someone else. Someone in ten times more pain than you. You wonder how that could possibly be. Then you remember you were just the friend, which makes you go drinking again. And somehow you manage to pick the one thing that tastes like dirt and makes you talk to yourself. So, while you're walking around, talking to yourself, so out of it you're repeating the sound of your footsteps in your head you overhear galactic news and get the idea in your head you're going to be like Commander Shepard. The only human in the entire--the only person in the entire galaxy you respect, and care about, and means everything to you."

"By ridding Omega of crime?" she interrupts, stroking slower now, her eyes forcing back tears.

"By _stupidly_ deciding to rid Omega of crime," he corrected. "Are you sure you want to hear this, Ry?"

She nods. "Of course."

"Eventually you just get used to it. You get used to feeling cold and empty. You get used to waking up freezing, but somehow sweating. The way people move around you when you enter a room, as if they think you'll spread your grief and unhappiness. You get used to everything. You try every--I tried every day to be like you, as if that could bring me closer, but it didn't. Not even a little. It just burned your memory into me, and I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been the one to show up at my door, Rylee. I--" Rylee threw herself into him, tears pouring down her face.

Garrus took her in his arms, adjusting her so she sat comfortably in his lap. Rylee Shepard, the sweet, loving and strong woman who never let anything tear her down was now crying relentlessly in his arms. Because of him.

He stroked her hair, hushed her, allowed her to cry. Speaking would've done nothing, and he knew it.

"Garrus," she managed, her voice muffled against his chest. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking about how difficult it would be for me if...you died on this mission--and I survived--for me to live without you. I just...wondered how you did it."

"There were these flowers at your funeral. Bright red, with thorns on the stems. Roses, your mother called them. Earth flowers. They smelled like you. Every week, I'd go out and get a vase of roses. My team thought I was crazy for the longest time. A turian with a rose obsession. I'm not going to die, Rylee. And you're not going to die either. Because I refuse to be a turian with a rose obsession."

Her body reverberated with laughter. "Archangel. Renowned sniper and rose obsessed turian. I'm sure that got you a lot of ladies," she looked at him with a slight smile.

"Oh believe me, if I wanted to pick up turian females with a weakness for rose loving snipers, I would've. But I unfortunately am not that kind of turian."

Her warm hands found a home on either side of his face. "Because you're a bad turian? Or because you've got a thing against turian women?"

He shrugged. It was such a human gesture, and he wasn't sure where he picked it up. Probably Tali, who'd picked it up from Liara and Ash.

This got him a displeased smirk. "You've got a thing for wrong answers, don't you?" Her voice drew out, and he knew what she'd almost said.

You've got a thing for wrong answers, don't you, _Vakarian_?

It'd always been her way of asserting dominance. Or telling him what's what. His last name was her way of showing who was in charge and that she wasn't afraid to pull rank to get what she wanted. All of which he learned the hard way.

But since that awkward and exciting moment in the Main Battery, he called her Rylee, and she called him Garrus. They both slipped up, except when she did it she'd apologize and correct herself. He got hit in the chest before he even realized what he'd done.

Rylee seemed to just like hitting people. He was just the only one with the misfortune of getting hit harder. Though, she was always more delicate with Tali than anyone else. Jack was the only one she ever used her biotics with, and Zaeed tended to get smacked upside the head for just being a general asshole. Even though he could certainly handle it, Ry had a certain mother-son bond with Grunt and that resulted in nothing more than a thunk to the head.

Samara got poked rather roughly, but she eventually returned the gesture. Thane and Rylee seemed to punch each other in the shoulder playfully more often than Garrus liked. And only twice had it led to them sparring in the mess. It wasn't violent, both times Ry put him on the floor as gently as possible with her biotics. Kasumi...as fast as she is, _always_ got shoved when she got inappropriate.

Miranda was different, though. Rylee just liked to mess up her hair and pinch her. Legion didn't get off scot-free, either. He had the misfortune of being flicked and gently hit with the back of her hand. Jacob...she kicked Jacob, just because he seemed to expect it less and less each time.

Mordin was definitely the most entertaining by far. She pulled on his horns, and it was always entertaining how he just went with it, never objecting. Joker's was the sweetest. She'd take his hat, ruffle his hair and run off for a little while. And when she returned she'd give him a familial kiss on the head before returning it where it belonged.

Garrus never really understood it, but he respected it and never asked questions.

"You still in there, Garrus?"

He snapped out of it quickly. His mind wandered more often than he'd ever admit. "I've told you a dozen times that I'm not a very good turian, Ry. At the time, getting laid was the farthest thought from my mind."

He could see the question she wanted to ask in her eyes. _What about now? Do you think about it now?_ His mandibles flickered uncomfortably. He walked right into that one, and damn him, he was going to answer honestly when she asked.

But she didn't. It remained silent for a long while.

"Roses," she said softly, her eyes looking away from him,"they're my favorite. Earth flowers aren't usually my thing, but roses..." She laughed to herself. "They remind me of myself, I guess. I love the smell. My father...William...he liked them, too. He took me to a place on Earth where roses grew wild, all over. The smell, Garrus, you wouldn't believe." Her lips cracked a slight smile and she looked right at him. "I guess roses was my mother's way of remembering me."

"Actually, your mother said something similar. Except she didn't request them. Apparently your father was a planner. Said something to Hackett years ago about roses and you, I guess it stuck with him."

Rylee nodded against his forehead. "Roses. If I die again, make sure they have roses. Lots of them. So you remember me."

"The next time I hear you talk about either one of us dying of anything other than old age, I'm going to bury you alive. Just to prove a point."

She laughed. "And make sure they list _punched a turian and survived_ in my accomplishments."

"You're not dying, Rylee. Spirits be damned. You're not dying, you pessimistic human."

"Fine," she whispered. "I won't die if you don't die."

"Deal."


End file.
